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Poisonous Fillings

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25/05/1840

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Monsieur J.M. Mallan, a surgeon-dentist from London's Ludgate Hill, 'begs to inform the nobility, gentry and inhabitants of this town and their vicinities that he may be consulted on Mondays at Mrs Swift's, Market Place'. He offers the following:
"...to fill the cavities of decayed teeth, however large, with Mineral Saccedaneum, the great advantage of which is that it is placed in the tooth in an almost liquid state, without heat or pressure, and immediately hardens into an enamel which by a recent improvement will not discolour. it allays pain, arrests further progress of decay, thus preventing the necessity of extraction. By this means, a mere shell is converted into a sound and useful tooth, and the unpleasant taint of the breath arising from it entirely removed."
What he doesn't say is that 'Mineral Saccedaneum' is almost pure mercury and is most definitely not a nice thing to have in your mouth! (Lincoln, Rutland and Stamford Mercury)
Taken from The Peterborough Book of Days by Brian Jones, The History Press, 2014.

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Water Newton Treasure

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300-410 AD

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The Water Newton Treasure is a hoard of silver vessels and plaques which forms the earliest group of Christian liturgical silver yet found in the Roman Empire. It was discovered in a recently ploughed field at Water Newton, the site of the Roman town of Durobrivae, in February 1975. The hoard was much damaged by the plough. It consists of nine vessels, a number of silver votive plaques, and a gold disc.

Many of the objects in the hoard bear inscriptions of the monogram formed by the Greek letters chi (X) and rho (P), the first two letters of Christ's name, a symbol commonly used by early Christians. Two bowls and one plaque have longer inscriptions in Latin. One of these, on a bowl, can be translated as, 'I, Publianus, honour your sacred shrine, trusting in you, 0 Lord.' Other inscriptions give the names of three female dedicators; Amcilla, Innocentia and Viventia, who must also have belonged to the congregation.

Individual pieces in the treasure were probably made at different times and in different places, and it is impossible to establish accurately the date at which they were hidden. The treasure may have been hidden in response to specific persecution of Christians or to more general political instability.